failure is always an option
Fallacy Avoidance
There is a constant production dilemma with games: it's incredibly difficult to predict how long something will take. What might go wrong, what solution might be needed. If a full code reset might occur to achieve a vital pivot. Even the most seasoned developers fall prey to unforeseen complications
The prominent solution in the producer's toolkit is to either reduce scope or extend time. Scope reduction is almost always the correct answer as it usually translates to a less costly outcome and the best design usually comes from reduction rather than addition. But sometimes, you hit the bone and come to terms that without each planned feature, the core experience just isn't what you're willing to accept.
I've cut down Intentional Bugs from having multiple systems to really only just one: Bug Discovery and Sharing. I do feel like I could leave the systems as is and sell this quirky little desktop toy for $1 and consider the project a success. With the core goals I set out with of shipping a commercial game completely solo, that would in fact count. There is a part of me that taking to heart the "fail faster" mentality here would be the healthiest decision. I have been burnt out and have been for a while now. I was still recovering when I started this project, even though I didn't, and still don't, want to admit it.
Burnout
I could write a whole post about my interpretations of burnout, how the term is woefully unhelpful at times. Its just a catch all of "I'm not having fun anymore, and I can't seem to figure out why". In my specific case, my personal life has of course been in turmoil, though I still count myself extremely fortunate and privileged, I also can be stressed and anxious and feel helpless at times. I've been working on holding that both can be true.
The deadline for creating a demo for Steam Next Fest that I set for myself a few weeks prior to the event came and went. I ended up having to pick up and move to a new country because my extension appeals where denied. I've been struggling greatly with personal relationships and living a solo-nomadic lifestyle hasn't exactly been a remedy for that. So, I once again turned to my trust tools: Do I cut scope or do I do the unthinkable and delay the project.
Choosing Failure Rather Than Sinking
I've been terrified of delaying this. I did not trust myself at all to actually finish something if I allowed myself delays. I needed to be disciplined in order to overcome resistance. I needed to not allow myself failure as an option. I fight against that mentality, one that was drilled into me by my own pride, by my culture, by my past life, each and every encounter with a creative project. Time and time and time again, I've allowed myself to fail, whether it be game jams or assignments or even just things I tell myself I want to do for fun. I don't meet my own expectations and thus fail. Rather than avoid failing, I was instructed to embrace failure; to learn from my mistakes and take it as falling forward; it still counts as progress.
But it is taxing, leaving things incomplete. Calling them failed and moving onto the next thing, hoping this time lessons have been learned and success might come easier. I leave in my wake, more half-done not complete projects than I could imagine. Without exaggeration if given the time, I think I would be close to naming a hundred. Even the ones I would not reasonably be able to call "failures" I would still remark on how incomplete they are. How dissatisfied I am. How I know if I was just able to convince myself to continue, they would be better. And I've told my self that letting them rest instead was the route to happiness and I would be better off not chasing another cost-sunk fallacy.
I Shouldn't Be Ashamed of Caring
But Intentional Bugs, this game that's barely a game still, feels different. This project is almost wholly mine (as much as any independent thing is barring the influence of friends and contributors) I set out with the thought that this was a practice run, a way to prove I could even do it. That I am not someone who requires someone else's muse and motivations to see a project to the end. Allowing this game, compared to all the more strongly collaborative projects I have to my name, to fail, felt like I was giving up on games completely. I'm not cut out for this. I don't have what it takes. I'm not smart enough, or determined, or creative enough to see this thing through. And I was miserable for feeling that.
There was no reason for me to put all that weight on making this game "done". To let it fail to call it over. I have never been more severed from obligations than I ever have been, and might ever be. I'm going to make this game to my own vision. I cannot let the producer part of my brain overpower the creative designer. He hasn't been allowed to sit at the table for a long time. His domain was preproduction, time for planning and prototyping is over, now is only execution and his voice should only be required when user feedback need be addressed. But I'm learning that's wrong. The creative heart needs to see the project to the end. It should be something each discipline should still care deeply about, even though production and reality rarely let it. But that doesn't mean everything else isn't important.
I thought about this too logically, too calculated. I think on other projects, having another passionate person to work alongside felt so freeing and refreshing, I just had to combat their vision, but still allow them concessions, it was their fight to fight to make it good, it was mine to make it real. But I don't have to be a creative genius to care about something. I don't have to be the best there is to want it to succeed.
Conclusion
So I'm allowing myself, just this once to look past failure. No not berate myself for not making deadlines, to not scrap the project though our budget ran out. Because it was an imaginary one. There are projects where it won't be imaginary, and those cutting skills are crucial, but I shouldn't hold myself to imaginary standards of a rigorous publisher, just because they aren't "realistic" in a business sense.
I'm making this game for me, I should and I have to. Afterall, I'm all that I have to rely on, I might as well make sure I'm taken care of.
So thanks for reading through that whole ramble. Long story short, my unannounced release date is now going out father, but not too far. I still want this to realistically come out, and I am excited to work on other things. Probably not by myself again for a while. This guy is crazy to work with.